Classroom Activities
Title: Attitudes About Reconstruction
Essential Question: What were the attitudes of the general public and political leaders about the passage of the Civil Rights Amendments?
This lesson is intended to help students develop an understanding of the correlation between public opinion and political decisions that are made. They will gather information about the perspectives of the general public, the Supreme Court, and elected officials.
Anticipatory Set: What emotions do you think Americans in the North were feeling when the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were passed? What about the South?
Lesson Details: Many students arrive in high school with a general understanding of the role Abraham Lincoln played in ending slavery but are unlikely to have deeper knowledge of the multi-faceted process that was required for legally abolishing slavery. This lesson is intended to capture their intention through the use of film, while challenging them to examine the abolition of slavery from multiple perspectives. In completing this lesson, students will view clips of Steven Spielberg’s 2012 Lincoln film. As they view the selected clips, students will add information a graphic organizer, which asks them for evidence that the general public, Supreme Court, and elected officials were in support of or against the Amendments that were passed at the conclusion of the Civil War. Once students have gathered the necessary information, they will demonstrate their understanding via writing. To conclude this lesson, students’ written responses will choose one of the perspectives they gathered information about and make an evidence-based claim that conveys their chosen group’s attitude towards the Civil Rights Amendments.
Title: Voting Rights Over Time
Essential Question: How has the Supreme Court changed the federal government over time, in regards to voting rights?
This lesson is intended to demonstrate that the idea that the actions of the Supreme Court since the end of the Civil War had played a significant role in ensuring voting rights for all Americans.
Anticipatory Set: In what year would you have gotten the right to vote?
Lesson Details: This lesson will focus on precedents set by the Supreme Court, related to voting rights. During this lesson, students will collaborate to create a chronological representation that allows them to visualize the change in decisions made by the judicial branch over time. Each group will be assigned an assortment of Supreme Court cases to research. Students will summarize the basic facts of each case, while determining whether it allowed for or prevented political change. They will then work together to develop a visually appealing way to present the information they have gathered and a thirty-second speech that will share the most important information they’ve learned with their classmates. The product that will be created lends itself to adaption for remote learning, as students can easily create Google Slides presentations of infographics with the required information. Students should investigate the following Supreme Court cases: United States v. Cruikshank, United States v. Reese, Guinn v. United States, Smith v. Allwright, Gray v. Sanders, Baker v. Carr, Gomillion v. Lightfoot.
Title: Today’s Supreme Court
Essential Question: Are the actions of today’s Supreme Court allowing for or constraining political change?
This lesson is intended to help students think critically about the ideologies of the current sitting Supreme Court justices and the decisions they are making, in order to determine if the court’s decisions are allowing for or constraining political change.
Anticipatory Set: What is the last Supreme Court decision you saw in the news?
Lesson Details: In order to get students to extend their thinking and make connections between the content they learned in this unit and current events, we will conclude the unit by examining the present-day Supreme Court. Students may have heard mention of the Supreme Court in current events recently, but are unlikely to know much about the individual justices and how their ideologies are impacting the rulings being handed down. This activity will be completed in expert groups, where they are collaborating with peers, with each student having a role that contributes to the final product. At the start of the activity, each student will complete a Supreme Court Justice profile, where they gather information about the ideology of the president that they were appointed by, as well as that of the justice, and their past decisions. Each group will then come together to discuss their individual justices and make a prediction about the overall ideological leanings of the present-day court. They will then be assigned a recent Supreme Court ruling to gain information about. The group will read the decision handed down by the Court, as well as any dissenting opinions. This information will be used to summarize the case, as well as determine whether the decision was in alignment with the ideologies of the justices, as well as the general public. They will then create a poster that will be used to present their findings during a class-wide gallery walk.
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